frag posts

At this year's QuakeCon, Big Download was able to sit in on a private screening of Frag, a serious documentary about the many struggles and setbacks dealt with by professional gamers such as Jonathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel. At the complete opposite end of the spectrum is LAN Party Massacre, a satirical film in development by Creatively Bankrupt Productions.

LAN Party Massacre follows the exploits of a group of pro gamers invited to a national LAN tournament. One of the attendees has spent a bit too much time playing video games and decides to hunt down fellow attendees.

The movie aims to parody both the "slasher" sub-genre of horror movies as well as gaming culture, with the antagonist, a man obsessed with violence due to excessive gaming, seemingly viewed as a representation of how the government and most non-gamers view our admittedly violent hobby.

LAN Party Massacre will be available in 2009. You can view or download a teaser trailer on the movie's official website.

"Playing PC games for money? That's crazy." That's certainly the mainstream viewpoint of the pro PC tournament industry but the documentary Frag offers up a look at the profession at is at times both fun and also extremely hardcore and serious. Friday at QuakeCon a special free showing of Frag was performed (the movie also came out on DVD on Friday).

The filmmakers clearly wanted to showcase the darker side of becoming a professional gamer. After the movie goes through the brief period in the 1980s where gamers who played Pac Mac well could get a little money, it switches to the modern era where the idea of people competing with each other in the game took over thanks to id Software's Doom and later Quake.